Dust Devil (4 page)

The
macadam was soft and steamy in the summer heat; along with the
pungent aroma of the hedge-apple trees and the dry scent of grass and
earth baking beneath the fierce yellow sun, the acrid smell of
sticky, melting tar filled her nostrils as she drove. On the far
horizon, a cloud of dirt rose, a dust devil shimmering and dancing in
the sluggish, sultry wind that streamed into the vehicle, making
Sarah long for the rainy grey days of spring that had, perversely,
caused her to wish summer would come.

From
the radio, the strains of some dreadful music reverberated as Alex
tuned the channel to a station he liked. In an effort to keep up with
her son, Sarah had learned the names of some of today’s popular
groups—Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins and Red Hot Chili Peppers
among them—but she couldn’t have told one band from
another. It made her feel strangely as though she were what the media
sometimes claimed her entire generation was: adrift. But of course,
she had missed out on any real social life in both high school and
college—and had little time or inclination for one now. So she
didn’t even know what music people her own age listened to. Her
own tastes were an eclectic mixture of jazz, blues and rock and roll.

By
now, they had reached the outskirts of town and were gravitating
toward its heart—a big, old-fashioned square with a grassy,
tree-studded park and a large gazebo at its center. Dominating the
west side of the square was the huge granite courthouse, which also
served as the town hall. Shops, restaurants and business offices
lined the other three sides. Meter parking was permitted along all
four streets; instead of being parallel to the curb, as was common in
cities, all the spaces were angled. Sarah thought, not for the first
time, that the town looked as though it had long ago fallen under a
spell that had caused several decades somehow to pass it by. She
pulled to a stop in front of the Penny Arcade, already crowded with
local youths.

“
I’ll
be back to pick you up around twelve-fifteen, Alex,” she
announced as he unfastened and then shrugged free of his seat belt
before opening the vehicle’s door and hopping out. “Don’t
go off anyplace else. Do you need any money?”

“
Nope.”
He shook his head, blowing a bubble with his gum, then popping it.
“I’ve still got part of my allowance. Besides, I’m
good at winning free games, Mom.” Impatient to be on his way,
he slammed the door and loped off before she could speak further.

Sarah
watched to be certain he got safely inside, then drove on down the
street to Shear Style, parking the Jeep out front and putting change
into the meter. She glanced at her watch, sighing with relief. Two
minutes to spare. Thank heavens she was on time, after all. She
wouldn’t have to worry about the hairdresser’s temper and
leaving the salon looking as though she had got her head caught in a
combine!

“’
Bout
time you showed up,” Lucille greeted her gruffly when she
entered the salon. “I was beginning to think you were going to
stand me up, maybe.”

“
Now,
Lucille, you know I always call you if I can’t keep my
appointment,” she replied soothingly as the woman promptly
ushered her through the busy salon to one of the two shampoo stations
in back. Sarah sat down in the black-vinyl, tilt-back chair, sweeping
up her dark brown hair, which fell past her shoulders, so Lucille
could fasten the huge, plastic cape around her neck.

“
Well,
there’s always a first time for everything,” the
hairdresser muttered as she turned on the water and, after testing
its temperature, began to spray Sarah’s head, soaking her hair
thoroughly. Fiftyish, stout, with a half-smoked cigarette invariably
dangling from one corner of her mouth, Lucille was what many in town
referred to as a “tough ole broad.” If she were brusque
to the point of rudeness with all her customers, however, it was
mostly to conceal the fact that in her breast beat the proverbial
heart of gold. Her hands, while strong, were gentle and sure, and she
knew how to cut and style hair like nobody’s business—which
was why she knew everybody in town’s business. “And I
know you’re having a hard time with that kid of yours. It ain’t
easy, being a parent these days—especially a single one. But I
guess you already know that.”

“
Yes,
I do. In fact, I was just thinking about it earlier this morning.”
Sarah sighed heavily. She guessed that not only Lucille, but also
everybody else in town knew Alex was having difficulties,
particularly since he was being compelled to attend summer school, to
catch up on lessons he somehow hadn’t managed to absorb during
the regular school year. If he couldn’t bring his marks up to
snuff by summer’s end, he was going to have to repeat the sixth
grade, another depressing thought.

“
A
boy needs a father—and you need a man, Sarah,” Lucille
observed bluntly as she generously lathered her| client’s hair,
massaging her scalp vigorously. “That being the case, when are
you finally going to break down and marry Bubba Holbrooke?” J.
D. “Bubba” Holbrooke, Jr. was the governor’s son
and managed Field-Yield, Inc. for his father. “I swear, the
man’s been after you for nigh on a coon’s age now.
Everybody in town knows it. Besides which, he’s done
practically everything but stand on his head to get your
attention—and I imagine if he’d have thought that’d
work, he’d have tried it, too.”

“
I
know, but I—I just can’t seem to make up my mind to
settle down with him, Lucille. I can’t explain it any better
than that.” How could she, Sarah asked herself, when she didn’t
even understand it herself?

Bubba
Holbrooke was the biggest catch in town—rich, good-looking, a
former high-school star quarterback, with a secure position at
Field-Yield, Inc., and heir to the bulk of all his daddy’s
worldly property, to boot. Any other woman would have been thrilled
and flattered by his interest, would have leaped at the chance to get
his wedding ring on her finger. But not Sarah Kincaid. She knew the
townspeople thought Bubba was crazy for wanting her, an unwed mother
from coal-mining “trash,” and that she was , the world’s
biggest fool for keeping him dangling when she could have snatched
him up on a moment’s notice.

“
Raise
up now,” the hairdresser instructed as, puffing on her
ever-present cigarette, she finished rinsing Sarah’s hair.
Grabbing a towel, Lucille wrapped it loosely around Sarah’s
head, then escorted her to one of the styling stations. “Do you
want my advice? No, you probably don’t. But I’m going to
give it to you, anyway, since it’s the only thing I give
anybody for free in this shop. And for some unknown reason, I’ve
got me a soft spot where you’re concerned,” the
hairdresser declared as, after tossing aside the towel she’d
used to prevent Sarah’s hair from dripping, she picked up her
comb, a pair of scissors and a couple of hair clips. “I reckon
it’s because I never had me any children. But I always wanted a
daughter of my own, and if I’d have ever been blessed with one,
I’d have liked her to be a lot like you. So you listen to me
now, Sarah, you hear? ’Cause what I’m fixing to tell you
is for your own damned good, whether you like it or not.

“
You’ve
been alone for far too long. Now, that’s maybe not so bad for a
tough ole broad like me, who’s had more ’n one man in her
life, or even two—because believe it or not, I was something to
look at in my salad days.” Lucille smiled wryly, coughed
hackingly for a long moment, then dragged on her cigarette again
before she went on combing, clipping and snipping. “But it sure
as hell ain’t no good at all for a pretty young woman like you,
Sarah-being all alone, that is. So my advice to you is that you need
to stop all this shilly-shallying and say yes the next time big, bad
Bubba pops the question.” The hairdresser paused. Then, after
glancing surreptitiously around the busy salon, she lowered her voice
and continued. “Because I’ll tell you what, Sarah. You’re
not getting any younger—or going to get any better offer,
either. Your boy’s father is long gone from this town—and
he most likely ain’t ever going to come back here.”

At
Lucille’s words, Sarah’s heart seemed to lodge in her
throat. In the trifold mirror mounted at the rear of the
style-station counter, her wide, startled eyes met Lucille’s
shrewd, knowing ones.

She
knows,
Sarah
thought, panic-stricken.
She
knows who Alex’s father was!

“
I—I
don’t know what you’re talking about, Lucille,” she
lied, her heart pounding.

“’
Course
you don’t,” the hairdresser agreed affably,
matter-of-factly, as she reached for her blow-dryer and snapped it
on, effectively covering the sound of their conversation so they
wouldn’t be overheard. “I didn’t expect you to say
anything else, seeing as how—unlike some I could mention—you’ve
kept your own counsel all these years. And don’t worry. I may
have an outspoken mouth on me, but it ain’t a big, blabbing
one—leastways, not when it comes to business that nobody’s
business but yours. But know this, Sarah—I ain’t the only
person in this town who’s got sharp eyes in her head and a good
memory. How long do you think you can go on concealing facts when
that boy of yours looks more like his daddy every passing day? And
why bother to hide ’em anymore, anyway? Alex, at least, ought
to know he’s got a daddy that made something of himself.”

“
Alex
is mine! I bore him, and I reared him—
alone,
Lucille!
With never a telephone call or a letter, not even so much as a single
word from— I don’t want Alex to know about his father!”
Sarah cried softly.

“
Is
that it, Sarah?” the hairdresser prodded relentlessly, although
not unkindly. “Is that
really
it?
Or is the truth that you don’t want the boy’s father to
know he has a son—a son you never told him about, a son you’ve
kept hidden from him all these long years?”

Her
face ashen, Sarah closed her eyes tightly, as though by doing so, she
could somehow shut out the drone of Lucille’s voice, as well.
Because hadn’t the hairdresser spoken the truth? If she were
honest with herself, Sarah knew she must admit that.

“
He’s
got no right to know,” she insisted stubbornly. “No right
at all.”

“
Sarah...Sary.”
Lucille’s voice, low and raspy from years of smoking, abruptly
softened as she spoke the old childhood nickname. “He was only
twenty-two—and terrified.”

“
Don’t
you think I know that—now? Still, he could’ve taken me
with him.” Sarah’s own voice was tremulous with emotion
at the memory of that summer’s day more than a decade ago, when
the course of her entire life had been so suddenly and irrevocably
changed. “I would have gone with him. I would have gone with
him anywhere... to the ends of the earth! I loved him! He could’ve
taken me with him,” she repeated dully.

“
You’ve
got to learn that much of a man is his pride, Sarah. He had nothing
to offer you back then. But he does now.”

“
I
don’t want anything from him—now. Or ever.”

“
Well,
maybe you don’t. But what about Alex? Think about him, your
son. That’s all I’m trying to tell you.” Lucille
turned off the blow-dryer and stuck it back into its holder. Then,
taking her brush and comb, she parted Sarah’s thick hair on the
side, brushing it until it shone like dark, burnished oak, a mass of
silkiness about the younger woman’s shoulders. Handing Sarah
the round mirror lying on the counter, the hairdresser spun her
around in the styling chair so she could see the back of her head.
“That’s seventeen dollars you owe me for the shampoo and
cut. The advice, like I said, is free.”

Opening
her purse and withdrawing her billfold, Sarah quickly, with a
trembling hand, wrote out her usual check in the amount of twenty
dollars, which included Lucille’s tip. Normally, after booking
her next appointment, Sarah would have lingered for a few minutes,
chatting with the other clients in the salon and buying a Coke from
the machine in the corner. Today, however, she couldn’t wait to
make her escape.